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Commentary

Covid-19 Vaccine Bottle Mockup (does not depict actual vaccine).
Editorial: COVID relief should be provided to all working Marylanders regardless of citizenship status
February 15, 2021 -

Recently, Gov. Larry Hogan and Democrats in Annapolis found themselves at an impasse over the $1.2 billion COVID-19 RELIEF (Recovery for the Economy, Livelihoods, Industries, Entrepreneurs, and Families) Act designed to help keep individuals and businesses afloat during the pandemic through a variety of refunds, tax credits and tax deferrals. On Friday, their contentious battle went away — for the weekend. Instead of insisting that a planned expansion in benefits under the federal earned income tax credit (EITC) include taxpayers who file their returns without benefit of a Social Security number, House and Senate leaders have decided to take that matter up under separate legislation.

Read More: Baltimore Sun
VP Kamala Harris: The exodus of women from the workforce is a national emergency
February 15, 2021 -

Last September, I had the chance to talk with culinary workers at a virtual town hall. One of those workers was M. Rocha, who used to work at a hotel on the Las Vegas Strip. When the pandemic hit last March, like so many in the tourism and hospitality industry, she was furloughed. She’s still not back on the job today. She has a wife, son and elderly mother she takes care of, and they all depend on her paycheck.

Read More: Washington Post
Boot: The Senate got smoking-gun evidence of Trump’s guilt. 43 Republicans didn’t care.
February 15, 2021 -

In the 1987 movie “The Untouchables,” Eliot Ness, played by Kevin Costner, uncovers last-minute evidence that Al Capone (Robert De Niro) bribed the jury that is trying him on tax evasion charges. When Ness presents the evidence to the judge, the corrupt jury is dismissed and Capone is forced to plead guilty. Justice is done. Imagine if the judge ignored the evidence and the corrupt jury acquitted the mob boss anyway. That is essentially what occurred in former president Donald Trump’s impeachment trial on Saturday when the Senate fell 10 votes short of the two-thirds majority needed to convict, because 43 Republicans voted to acquit.

Read More: Washington Post
Rodricks: Maryland fares relatively well through the pandemic, but vaccine rollout needs a bigger brain
February 15, 2021 -

While attempting to get the COVID vaccine — a task that required making numerous inquiries to numerous websites instead of just one inquiry to a central website — I took a break for an hour and became a disease data nerd. I wanted to see how Maryland has fared through the pandemic compared to neighboring states. This wasn’t just a way of killing time between submitting applications for vaccinations, but something I’ve been curious about: Where does one of the wealthiest states in the country, with so many big brains in residence, stack up compared to West Virginia, Pennsylvania, Virginia and Delaware?

Read More: Baltimore Sun
Oppenheim: Leveling the Unequal Pretrial System for the Poor
February 15, 2021 -

No one awaiting trial, presumed innocent, should be incarcerated based on their financial circumstances. Period. Maryland’s piecemeal pretrial home detention system, in actuality, is no system at all — yet it manages to keep individuals who cannot afford home detention in jail before being convicted of any crime.

Read More: Maryland Matters
Vidal: Is School Re-Opening Debate About COVID or Politics?
February 15, 2021 -

An elementary school girl disconnected from virtual class for months; a conscientious student unable to attend school due to caring for her preschool siblings; seniors who dropped their plans to go to college or left home; and several adolescents struggling with new symptoms of depression in their dragged-out days of turned-off cameras and isolation.

Read More: Maryland Matters
Our View: Success of Carroll County school board decision dependent on safe plan, teacher buy-in
February 15, 2021 -

The Board of Education is proceeding with the confidence of a red-hot blackjack player at a Las Vegas casino, doubling down, emboldened by the relative paucity of COVID-19 cases in Carroll County Public Schools over the past month of hybrid learning and the shifting opinion of the general public, politicians and the scientific community. The board, at its Wednesday meeting, voted to allow all students to return to schools in person four days a week by March 22 and five days a week at certain facilities (such as the Career and Tech Center).

Read More: Carroll County Times
Meet the man who defied skeptics to build a journalism school at Morgan State University in record time
February 12, 2021 -

The photo accompanied DeWayne Wickham’s last column at USA Today. He sits next to President Barack Obama around a large table in the Roosevelt Room of the White House. Presidential aide Valerie Jarrett is there too, as well as other Black journalists. Obama listens as Wickham speaks. The image is a snapshot of the journalism prestige Wickham has gained in 40-plus years in the business.

Read More: Baltimore Sun
Maryland needs paid family leave
February 12, 2021 -

Remember the days when they thought of an unexpected illness in the family was a scary yet seemingly remote possibility? If there’s one thing the COVID-19 pandemic has done, it’s to demonstrate that such emergencies — from an incapacitated parent to a seriously ill spouse or child — are far more than theoretical. Further, it’s demonstrated that a lot of families, particularly those of limited means, reside dangerously near a financial precipice. Leaving a job behind temporarily with unpaid leave, a benefit all Americans enjoy under a 1993 federal law, is one thing. Keeping a single parent and the rest of her family above water during an extended emergency is quite another.

Read More: Baltimore Sun
What we can learn about cancer drug development from the COVID-19 approach
February 12, 2021 -

As an oncologist, I recognize the arduous path to make a new drug. It is a hard trek that lies between the bench and the patient’s bedside. Ordinarily, it takes five or more years just to get a new drug into the clinic for testing. Similar time is needed for clinical trials. Then comes Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approval, followed by the time it takes for licensing, manufacture, distribution and adoption by physicians. Ordinarily, this means that 12 or more years might pass before the FDA even begins its evaluation of a new drug or regimen. This is before any therapy becomes part of our disease-fighting armamentarium.

Read More: Baltimore Sun

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